Australia to start uranium exports to UAE

PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The Australian Greens have called into question the federal government’s decision to export uranium to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr this week signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with that country.

Carr said the agreement opened the door for the UAE to become Australia's first Middle Eastern export market for uranium.

“We're underpinning jobs and investment in Australian uranium mines, and helping deliver certainty for the UAE's domestic power needs. Strict safeguards will apply, including for the safe handling and security of radioactive material, restrictions on re-export and guarantees of use for peaceful purposes.”

Carr noted that the agreement with the UAE mirrored similar arrangements with Canada, the Republic of Korea, China, the US and elsewhere.

“It's a strong recognition of our relationship with the UAE, and a step forward for their plans for a domestic nuclear energy industry from 2017,” he added.

However, the Greens’ nuclear policy spokesperson Scott Ludlam has lambasted the government’s decision to sell uranium to what he labelled a “dictatorship”.

“This continues the pattern of successive Australian governments allowing the agenda of the uranium industry to override our national security and nonproliferation interests. The uranium mining industry has long been extremely liberal in its choice of customers; the Australian government, on the other hand, is supposed to represent a broader constituency.

“Without nuclear power stations there can be no nuclear weapons, no possibility of fuels being stolen to build ‘dirty bombs', no possibility of a nuclear power station being hit by a conventional bomb and setting off a nuclear explosion. The events of recent months have made it abundantly clear the Middle East is volatile. Do we really want the entire region pursuing nuclear power,” Ludlam said.

The agreement with the UAE sets the framework for future private sector uranium sales to the country, which aims to bring four nuclear power plants on line by 2020.

The agreement covers conditions for supply of nuclear material, components related to nuclear technology and associated equipment for use in a domestic power industry, and it explicitly prohibits the use of Australian nuclear material for weapons or explosive devices.

Australia currently has 22 nuclear safeguard agreements worldwide, governing potential sales to nations including the US, Russia, China, Canada, Sweden, France and the Republic of Korea, among others.

A previous 1989 agreement with Egypt was signed but not implemented.